Hands-free communication devices allow users to communicate using electronic devices without having to hold a handset. In many cases, however, there is very little acoustic isolation between the microphone and the speaker of a hands-free device. The lack of acoustic isolation results in acoustic echo, which can be annoying to users.
In addition, microphones of hands-free devices have broad directional coverage in order to pick up user speech regardless of the location of the user. Because of this, the microphone may pick up ambient noise, which may interfere with desired communications.
Hands-free devices may be used to communicate between individuals as well as to interact with computerized systems using voice. For example, an automated system may use a hands-free communications device to receive spoken commands from a user, and may perform various actions in response to the spoken commands. Such actions may include providing information in spoken form using speech synthesis or generation, rendering media such as music or radio, or other types of actions. In these situations, audio interference such as echo and ambient noise may cause difficulties when attempting to recognize user speech. Various techniques may be used to suppress noise and echo, including various filtering techniques and acoustic beamforming techniques.